


Videos to the Other Side

by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa- (strangeandintoxicating)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bittersweet, Bittersweet Ending, Cancer, Ghost Keith, Ghost Sex, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Murder, Rating May Change, Suicide, Tags May Change, Warnings May Change, heed the warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-12-27 14:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21119975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeandintoxicating/pseuds/Strange%20and%20Intoxicating%20-rsa-
Summary: Shiro, a youtube fitness guru, keeps seeing strange things in his comments about things moving in the background of his videos and wisps of something like a man floating through his video ever since he moved into his new apartment.Keith's a ghost with unfinished business.Enough said.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings. This is a story about love, life, and finishing up all that unfinished business. 
> 
> This is a thread-fic that is currently being updated regularly on twitter. I will be posting completed sections regularly. If you want to watch it unfold in real time, check it out at @mssaifox

Shiro knew that something was wrong for a while; they were little things, little comments nestled under a few of his workout youtube videos, that set the hairs on the back of his neck straight at attention. 

It was always small— nothing too big, nothing to cause people to immediately jump to the conclusion that would always be whispered in such situations, but they still inevitably led down the dark and dreary path… a dark and dreary path that always led to Shiro sleeping with the lights on for a couple of days until the eeriness and fear melted back into the mundane.

Ghosts.

The first time Shiro read the comments, he had laughed out loud and nearly knocked his coffee over, only managing to grab it with his prosthetic hand right before it tumbled over onto his new carpet and his six month old kitten, Black.

That was definitely a new one. 

Sure, his apartment was a little colder than his old place, but his window was also facing south and he never managed to get direct sunlight into his apartment. The central air vent was situated right above his computer screen and yeah, maybe he hadn’t been using it lately, but it didn’t mean the occasional gust couldn’t randomly blow through.

Ghosts was just a crazy assumption, because Shiro knew two things in life—

Life was short and then it was over. 

No angels, no afterlife, no glowing white light, and definitely no ghosts. Shiro didn’t believe in that kind of stuff, because after having nearly died from bone cancer when he was a kid, he had faced the worst the earth had to offer and kept going, anyway. 

Who really believed that there was a ghost haunting some 20-something youtube fitness trainer, anyway?

Except… 

Shiro looked down at the newest video he’d uploaded just a few minutes before, and his comments were already spammed with time marks for things going bump in the night. Or, rather, time stamps for anything and everything that moved behind Shiro’s head during filming. 

In the other videos, it was only little things moving, really. It was just the wind that inched his glass forward just to the edge of his table, and maybe a little earthquake that caused his mirror to jingle against the closed door. Shiro had even convinced himself that he was hallucinating, going out to grab a carbon monoxide alarm just in case. 

But there was nothing but oxygen in his room, and yet things continued to move in the background of his youtube videos, and the most recent video— 

Shiro wasn’t unsettled. No, definitely not unsettled. 

Not unsettled at all. 

He was an adult with one arm and years of fear of needles and doctors and the smell of bleach that burned his nostrils until he wanted to do nothing but die— Shiro knew what true fear was, and there was nothing to fear about a fucking _ghost_.

Except…

This?

This was…

Different.

Different was the best word that Shiro could chose, because if he tried any other phrase, it would have likely killed him. This wasn’t just something in the background moving anymore.

No.

This was…

“Okay, so I get why you’d hide this from me. This is— yeah. This is big, Shiro. This is like, super big. If you’ve somehow managed to get actual video of a spirit…” Matt whistled, and Shiro couldn’t help but cringe. 

“Matt, it’s nothing— just a smudge on the camera,” Shiro said, grabbing hold of his Go-Pro, swinging it in front of his best friend before tossing it back onto the desk. “It’s really nothing. People are just over-reacting, like they always do whenever they think they’re seeing stuff. There’s nothing there.” 

Shiro knew what people were like, how they jumped to conclusions, even if those conclusions pointed to a goddamn _ghost_. 

But Matt? 

Matt was practical, wasn’t he?   


“Look— ever since that first video with the ghost, your follower count’s been going through the roof—” 

“You know I don’t care about any of that. I do the youtube thing for me.” Sure, Shiro made a nice couple dollars off the adsense money, but it was more about taking care of his body and showing other people how best to care for themselves, too. After years of being sick, Shiro wanted nothing more than to be healthy. “I wouldn’t do this for the followers.” 

“I _know_ that, Shiro. I _live_ with you, remember?” 

He and Matt had been roommates since university. They always had a good relationship, even with all of the drama with Shiro’s most recent breakup dragging everyone in their friend circle into choosing sides. After the dust had settled, Shiro had moved into a new apartment with Matt, and that, as they say, was that.

Until the whole ghost thing started, anyway.

“Even if you’re doing the YouTube thing only for fun, it doesn’t change that something’s going on here. Something crazy and wild, sure, but it’s still _something_.” Matt pointed to the screen, at the very clear face of _someone_. “They think you’re doing this for the views, some kind of weird clickbait thing, but Shiro— that’s a face, Shiro. You can see it clear as day!” 

Shiro tried not to look at the video, because yeah… it was definitely a face. 

“Or it’s just a smudge?” Shiro offered again, but Matt’s only response was to shake his hands at the screen as though it could somehow magnify the video. All it did was make Matt look a little more crazy, if that was even possible. 

“C’mon, Shiro. You’re not blind or stupid. We both can see this— it’s a goddamn ghost! You can even see the face!” 

Shiro swallowed. Yeah, he could see something, and maybe it was a face. But maybe it was just a camera flare, or some kind of accident, or… or… 

“It’s nothing, Matt.” 

“It’s something, Shiro!” 

“It’s just—”    


“No!” Matt shouted. “No excusing this. I could take the first couple times, but I live here too, you know! And if we’re living with Capser the Friendly Ghost or one of those things from The Grudge with the— the— the goddamn _clicking_—” 

Shiro shuddered. That movie had given him the creeps. 

“There’s nothing to worry about, Matt…” 

But Matt only shook his head and then, with a flourish, pulled out his phone. 

“You may think this is nothing to worry about, but I’m calling BS.” 

Matt typed out something quickly, tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth, before he hit send.

“What was that?” Shiro asked, trying to read the message upside down. When he couldn’t, he tried to grab the phone. Matt’s only response was to smack Shiro’s hand away before tossing it onto the table next to Shiro’s Go-Pro.

“I’m calling in the Cavalry.” 


	2. Chapter 2

The Cavalry, Shiro would soon learn, was actually Pidge, Matt’s little sister, and Pidge’s long-time friend, Allura.

Shiro had met Allura a few times during social gatherings and family barbeques that Matt would drag him to. Mrs. Holt made some damn good chili mac and cheese, and Shiro could hardly deny himself that, especially since Mrs. Holt loved him like a son, and would make sure to make an entire batch just for him to bring home. 

Allura had seemed nice; a little guarded, sure, but considering what Shiro knew about her family situation, he could completely understand why. Allura’s parents had died when she was young and she ended up living with her godparents and their son, Lotor. 

Shiro didn’t know the full story, but he knew enough to know things hadn’t ended well between the two, and Allura had concern to go off to university as far from Lotor as she could get. There, Allura had become friends with Pidge and her friend group, which made her honorary family.

Still, honorary family or not, Shiro wasn’t expecting to walk into his living room to see Pidge lounging on the floor next to Allura, Matt sitting on the couch with his feet curled up under him. It looked like if anything so much as twitched he would jump across the room and out the front door. 

“Hi, Shiro,” Allura said with a small smile as she pulled out her backpack, rustling through for something Shiro couldn’t see. 

“Uh, hi?” Shiro was sure to wave a quick hello before turning to Matt, the question clear on his face. 

“She’s a witch,” Pidge explained before Matt has a chance to answer. She grabbed a handful of cheese puffs from the bowl next to her, tossing one at Matt’s face. “Matt thinks she can help.”

“Witch?”

“I prefer the term ‘touched’,” Allura said softly. Shiro could now see the contents of her bag: sage, candles, a spirit board made of wood, and… 

“What is that?” 

Allura lifted it up to show Shiro; it wasn’t anything terrifying or out of the ordinary— just a standard black and red plaid shirt. It was well-loved,Shiro almost felt compelled to walk forward and touch it, to run his fingers against the soft and worn cotton, but— Shiro had never seen it before in his entire life. 

“I found it in the apartment, in your room, before we moved in.” 

Shiro looked from Matt back to the shirt. “Why did you keep it?” 

“I threw it under the sink, figured we could use it as a rag.” Matt looked from Shiro to Allura. “Um.” 

“Matt,” Allura murmured, “tell Shiro the rest, please.” 

“Yeah, loser. Tell him what you know.” 

“Yes, Matt,” Shiro deadpanned, “tell me what you know.”

Matt gulped. 

“You uh, you know how we got this place cheap? Like super, super cheap? And it’s such a nice place, right?”

“No, Matt. You better not say what I think you’re gunna say—”

Matt let out a sound, something between a whine and a groan, before answering, “Yeaaaaaah. Some dude got killed. Whacked. Shish-kebabed. Totally and completely murdered.” 

Well, at least that explained why Matt wasn’t half as skeptical as Shiro had been.

“Where?”

“Dude, you don’t need to know that—”

“It was my room, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“I think you telling him he didn’t need to know was you saying that,” Allura pointed out. 

Pidge just threw more cheese balls at Matt’s head. 

Shiro resisted the urge to laugh, but just barely. 

“I’m so fucked.” 

“I wouldn’t say that…” Allura began, but Shiro interrupted, throwing himself on the couch next to Matt.

“Lemme guess— you prefer the term ‘totally fucked?” 

Pidge lobbed a few more cheese balls at Matt’s head.

“Well…”

Shiro put his head down in his hands. Of course he had to have someone die in his bedroom. That’s the kind of luck he had, wasn’t it? 

“You wanted the bigger closet,” Matt reminded him. Shiro’s only response was to grab some of the cheese balls from the couch and throw them a little harder than necessary at the back of Matt’s head. 

It didn’t help, but it was better than nothing. 

“So, what’re you going to do?” Shiro asked after a moment.

“We’re going to summon his spirit.” 

“No, Pidge,” Allura quickly corrected. “We’re going to give him an opportunity to reach out to us. He’s already here, so there’s no need to summon him. Matt gave me the shirt—” Allura placed the shirt next to the spirit board. “And now we’ll prepare for a calling.” 

“I’d much rather you told it to leave, or at least go haunt Matt’s room,” Shiro said. None of this had anything to do with him, and this was, after all, all Matt’s fault. “Can you do that?” 

Allura frowned. “I can’t say I’ve ever asked, but it would seem that this is his home. He very well may have some unfinished business. Maybe it would be better if you helped him come to terms with his death.” 

Shiro wanted to ask more questions about the victim, the guy who supposedly got killed, but… 

“This is a little much for me,” Shiro admitted, standing up. He felt bad because he knew that Allura and Pidge were only there to help, but Shiro didn’t sign up for any of this. 

“Shiro—” 

“No, it’s fine,” Shiro told them, but he was already slowly inching away, toward his bedroom door. “You guys can do whatever you need and I’ll just— you know, I can go do something else.” 

But Allura only shook her head. 

“Shiro, whoever this spirit is has been making his presence known to _you_, not Matt. If you want to find out what is going on, or how to help this spirit move on.” 

“You mean, like, what? Unfinished business?” 

Allura nodded, somberly. “We haven’t had the chance to find out about the man ourselves, so the least we can do is call on him, see if there’s anything we can do to help.” 

“What if it just makes it worse?” Matt asked.

“Look, Allura,” Shiro began, “I appreciate this, I really do, but… there’s no ghost here. It’s just some technical problems.” Even saying it felt _wrong_, and Shiro had to resist the urge to rub his arms to stop the shudder from running through him. 

Shiro may not have known Allura well, but when her piercing blue eyes met his, Shiro knew not to underestimate the woman in front of him. 

“You’re allowing your fear to control you, Shiro. You know that there is something here, but your fear from your own brush with your mortality has paralyzed you.” 

Shiro turned to Pidge who shook her head. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“Me neither,” Matt quickly added. 

“How—” 

“How do I know?” Allura asked, her eyes moving to look at Shiro’s right arm. “Your soul, Shiro. You were just a child… I’m sorry that it happened to you. I know what it feels like to lose part of yourself to something outside your control.” Then, a little quieter, “And I know you believe that life is short and then over, that there’s nothing after death, but… that isn’t true. Let me show you?” 

Shiro found himself sinking back down into the couch next to Matt, not caring that he could feel the crunching of one of the cheese balls on his ass. He could hear those words coming out of Allura’s mouth, but…

“How did you know?” 

Allura managed a half-smile, half-shrug. “I know a lot of things, Shiro. Like I said… I’m touched. And so are you.” 

There were so many questions that Shiro could have, _should_ have asked, but instead Shiro only nodded his head. “I… okay,” Shiro said faintly, feeling his throat constrict. “Let’s… let’s do this, I guess.” 


End file.
